‘Braid’ is the First Feature Movie Fully Funded by Crypto

Film and cryptocurrency have finally come together. This year’s Tribeca Film Festival will feature the indie hit Braid, a psychological horror film that’s allegedly the first feature to be completely funded “through an Ethereum crowd sale.”

New York City-based director Mitzi Peirone – the brains behind the film – says she encountered a lot of barricades while trying to get the project off the ground. She ultimately decided on the indie route after several pitches to studios garnered requests from executives that she “dumb down” the script.

“I was facing either seeing my creative freedom taken away and having to compromise on the story, or not having enough money to make it,” she explained at a festival panel discussing blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

Peirone also didn’t want to ask her family and friends or guilt them into giving donations to her project, so she decided on another route. “Braid” is completely funded through crypto-token sales, and she’s grateful the technology exists now more than ever.

Movies and Crypto – It Was Going to Happen Eventually

The first sale began in June, with the film’s team eager to raise a budget of roughly $1.4 million USD to make the film. Peirone made it so that token investors ultimately received up to 30 percent of the movie’s eventual profits. The team wound up making its goal in just under two weeks.

Peirone attributes the goal’s success to timing. With the sale beginning just six months before bitcoin hit the $19,000 mark, the director says she jumped in right as America was at the height of crypto fever. During the sale, bitcoin was only trading for about $3,000, and time allowed her funds to increase tenfold.

“If we can enable independent artists to truly follow their hearts – instead of having to all back into pre-established algorithms of storytelling that we’ve heard and seen over and over – we can establish an entertainment industry that we want to see,” she explained.

Braid’s ‘Blockchain Brother’

While “Braid” claims to be the first fully crypto-funded feature, it’s not the first to attach itself to blockchain technology. Early April saw the introduction of “No Postage Necessary,” a dramedy film by Two Roads Picture Co.

Partnered with P2P distribution app Vevue, the company is working to upload the movie onto the blockchain, and thus make it available through streaming via cryptocurrency payments. The film will be available in June 2018.

Will film and crypto increase their partnership in the future? Post your comments below.